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< Piro >

In light of Friday's comic, this could almost be an amusing rant. I once considered getting a Live Journal, but I realized how silly that sounded, considering i already have a good rant space, this space right here, with plenty of people (who for some reason) are willing to read it. So why on earth would i want somewhere else to rant as well?

I wonder if part of the function of having a LJ is that most of the people who read it are people you know. I suppose I thought that maybe a more private spot to be my normal whiny self would be therapeutic. Sure, its fun for MT readers to see what I'm thinking, but I know for a fact that listening to me gripe about things endlessly would become more irritating than entertaining. Better to have a private journal for that. But then i realized that a private blogspace might irritate the hell out of my friends in the same way. So, in the end i just started keeping a devlog that only Reki (my poor abused mac g4) has to deal with. It's the writing that is important, not the fact that anyone might read it... at least, when it comes to most of my daily grumblings.

But that's not really what i wanted to rant about today. The following could, i suppose, fall right into the category of the type of LJ entry that Seraphim was reading from in Friday's comic. I'm sure a lot of you don't want to hear it, but maybe this one does involve a few more serious things than just normal pirowhining. :P

Friday morning was, actually, quite a beautiful morning and the birds were indeed singing. I was feeling a little bleak about all the stuff i had to do that day (remember, our new online store opens at the end of the month, so Seraphim and I are hella busy) but there's nothing really abnormal about that. Also, I have made a lot of progress lately, so i had reasons to feel at least moderately optimistic that it was going to be a decent day.

After running around town taking care of various errands, we arrived at the Factory (this is what I've dubbed the warehouse where we're running Megagear out of. I call our apartment "Old Home". I am such a pathetic Haibane fanboy ^^;;), I started on a rather simple task that I had been putting off for a while - running a network cable over to the shipping computer.

Now, i've adopted a rather Largo-esque approach to managing network cables - i'm hanging them from the ceiling. Our space has a drop acoustical ceiling, like the kind you find in most office buildings. What i've been doing is using plastic zip ties to hang carabiners (metal spring-snap hooks used in rigging) from the ceiling structure at 4 foot intervals and looping the cables thru them. Keeps them off the floor, and out of our way so we don't trip over them. Works amazingly well.

Now, as an architect, i've been poking my head above ceilings for years. I remember pushing up and aside thousands of tiles in builds all over, mostly hospitals where i often wondered what rare, long dormant diseases i was breathing in as dust and particles fell from tiles as i lifted them. Lifting a few tiles and sticking a zip tie over the support Ts shouldn't be a big deal. Done it hundreds of times before.

Well, this time it turned out to be a big deal.

Part of the problem with getting tiles to set back into place is that you sorta have to 'bounce' them, pushing them up and letting their own weight set them into place. This can, of course, produce some dust and particles. What it can also do is land chunks of ceiling tile in your eye. This is what happened to me.

Not a pleasant feeling, as you might imagine. After (amazingly) getting off the ladder without falling, I tried to flush it out of my eye, but for some reason we couldn't get it out. It the end, because i couldn't open my eye without it hurting, we ended up going to the emergency room. It's scary having something happen to your eyes. I wasn't really worried, not really, but still, we couldn't get it out, that was a problem.

Sarah drove me to the Emergency Room, a place i swore that I'd never end up. I had to keep my eyes closed the entire time, because even opening the good eye made my injured eye hurt more. It's a weird experience, being driven around. Being in a wheelchair, sitting in an ER not knowing what is around you, no idea where you really are, not really able to see at all. I had done a lot of work on hospitals as an architect, including an Emergency Room retrofit and addition. I figured that I had spent enough time in hospitals over the years that i didn't need to actually be there for any other reason. What was i doing here?

It took a while to get the last of the particles out of my eye. It two two tries, and the second time they had to swab the back of my eyelid with solution. It kinda spooked me, having to go through that. You don't want to think about loosing your sight, it's not a pleasant thought.

"Good rant material" i kept thinking to myself, jokingly, as they looked at the surface of my eye for scratches or abrasions or damage. It's sad, but i also sat there thinking about how, if i write about this, that people are going to think I'm just making more excuses for why i am late with this, or why i was distracted away from doing that. I wasn't thinking about the fact that i was lucky that my eye was ok, i was upset about having blown almost a whole day by my own stupidity. Safety goggles are cheap. I will be getting a pair before i finish the cabling project.

Four hours later Sarah drove us home. Once i left i realized that i was more worked up about this than i thought i was. My eye still hurts, but it's more sore than in pain. I don't think there will be any lasting effects from this, other than it really spooked me.

I think that a lot of things that happen to people, the kind of things that you write entries in your journal about, are not always interesting, or entertaining, or even moving. I am sure that some of you probably think "so, your eye is all right, get over it." It's easy to take what other people are thinking or feeling, and apply your own scale of values to it. It's really easy to belittle how people feel when you aren't feeling it yourself. But as a writer, it is also important to understand that very fact: just because you feel something and you write it down, it doesn't mean you are communicating what you feel effectively. Just because it means something to you, doesn't mean it will to others.

Of course, if you are just writing for yourself, as a way of exploring your own feelings, it doesn't really matter, does it? Maybe that's what LJs are really all about. Sorta like this rant here is, i suppose - it's one for myself. Thank you for your patience with it.

< Seraphim >

Spiderman 2 will be released today. I can't really enjoy movies that rely so heavily on CG effects. Spiderman, Matrix Reloaded, the Hulk and others annoy me. When I go to a live action film I go there to see actors acting not a computer generated character swinging around New York. I like the actors to work for it by being suspended by a rope 20 feet off the ground hanging on for dear life in a sound stage whilst industrial fans blow them around like a scrap of paper in a hurricane. Dress up a mannequin and make me believe it is the real thing. Use CG to fix their hair and plaster a fake smile on their face. Use special effects to hide the wires and harnesses don't computer animate the entire person.

Not all tricks are achieved with computer graphics. I know people who believed Elijah Wood and the other Hobbits were actors of very short stature and all they used were camera angle tricks to achieve that effect. It looked real and felt real. Fooling people is what it is all about. Knowing it is CG takes all the fun and wonder out of it.

Free Comic Book Day is being held in conjunction with opening weekend of Spiderman. If you think you don't like comics (the non-web comic type) stop by a local participating independent comic store July 3rd and try it for free. For more information about Free Comic Book day and how it works, be sure to read the website. We're lucky in that we have two comic shops locally and Piro and I are reading a few:

If you are interested in comics for younger readers there is Amelia Rules! by Jim Gownley, Mia, Neotopia, or Courtney Crumrin. There is a lot of good stuff out there with several interesting titles coming out later this year like Autumn by Slave Labor Graphics and Flight by Image. Personally, I have been waiting around for two going on three years for Image to publish a sequel to Avigon by Che Gilson and Jimmie Robinson. What is with that? One year is forgivable and I can understand. Lots of people are just one year overdue ^_^;; I was told by the author that it will be out in October. She is going to be at SDCC and I plan to track her down. 90,000 people and all - I will locate her. I could just send Piro over to the Image booth to go all Piro the Homicidal Web Comic Artist on them.

We are hoping to meet Serena Valentino, Enrico Casarosa, Ted Naifeh, and Stan Sakai at San Diego Comic Con this year. I actually wasn't into comics last year when we were there and I can't believe how much I missed out on. Don't worry, we'll be at our booth too - at least a little bit : ) We just don't know where that is yet. We'll go where ever they tell us too when we get there. The Megatokyo panel is Friday the 23rd at 3:00 p.m. in room 8. It is supposed to be in a much larger room so hopefully everyone will fit this year.